Marcelini
by Howling Din
Summary: Set a little to the left of 1940s U.S.A. This is the story of Marcelini, the only child of an Italian crime lord, who wants her to one day take over the family business. This is conflicted by her own plans for her life, and soon, her crazy world, and even crazier friends will draw her into a crossroads that will change her life forever.
1. Neo Italia

**Based off a suggestion made to me by a certain brilliant and charismatic individual.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

The cobblestone streets of New Rome were especially lively. The rush hour heralded packed sidewalks, and masses of cars pippiting and popping throughout the streets. All condensed between high-rising buildings that defied any semblance of uniform or order. Many leaned in over the streets, and many yet were patched with polyester-soaked sheets that wrapped around their entire form.

A girl walked these streets. She was in her late teens, with flowing, knee-length raven hair and a bass guitar slung over her shoulder. The sidewalks were packed, and yet she negotiated them with ease, slipping and ducking past the clumsy, sloppy peoples inhabiting the streets with grace and precision.

Bodily waste fell from the upper stories of buildings, and splashed all over near the middle of the street. She looked to the left, across the street, and spotted a man dressed peculiarly like a clown. He wore an obnoxiously colored tunic with an oversized beret. As he moved along the walkway, he hopped, and hopped again, in and out of an awkward, flexible stance, only to advance again upon the next hop. A young woman, ahead of him, was frantically trying to push through the oblivious crowd as she kept looking back at him. He continued to advance on her, hop after hop.

A police officer, leaning against a lightpole, was looking straight at this scene. Satisfied, the officer went back to reading the paper.

As the raven-haired girl continued along the sidewalk, her own obnoxiously dressed assailant popped out of an alleyway, and began hopping at her. She heard him go "whoo!" with each hop up, and a "paa..." on each landing. He got close to her.

_Wham!_

The assailant was on the ground, his nose crushed against his face. The girl walked on, indifferent thereafter.

Continuing along the street, she heard a different chant, coming from the next alleyway, she stopped to look, and saw a slight clearing in there. A circle of adolescent boys sat on their knees in a circle. They were all pale, frail, and wore glasses. Moving in sync, they ended each movement with all pointing their arms withing the circle, going "paa," at the same time as pointing. Then they went into a new set of arm movements, ending at another pointing forward, "lii!"

The girl moved on as soon as she saw what was going on in there. Nobody went into those alleyways; they were quite hazardous.

She moved on, eventually reaching her destination: a clearing in the buildings.

A huge television screen loomed over the clearing, which had a wide roundabout in the road, with a web of walkways and benches in the round center. The street veered off in a dozen different directions. A tightly packed crowd was growing in this broad intersection, all their attention was focused on the television screen.

It was almost time for the recently re-elected president's fifth inaugural speech, which would be broadcast all over the United States. The president was extremely popular. Anybody who missed a speech or public appearance was considered a weirdo.

She with the bass guitar heard two sets of footsteps approaching in a beeline directly toward her. Her hearing had always been unusually acute, and she could tell that these footsteps, out of the hundreds of footsteps around her, were heading directly to her position.

She turned, and smiled when she saw who it was.

Two men, the first was tall and slender, with a head of thick, golden hair. The one at his side was not much taller, but had a much wider build, and his face was so hideously ugly it was almost a work of art. Hard wrinkle lines formed along his mostly round face to the point of warping it. His face conveyed, in every sense, the word 'bulldog.'

"Finn, Jake." She said to both of them in salutation as they stopped in front of her. Finn and Jake, also known as the Werecanine brothers, were her friends. They worked for an institution called the P.S.S. And she occasionally hung out with them. The P.S.S. Was an agency formed by the president. It had a bit of a reputation for allegedly employing a bunch of morally questionable psychotic thugs, but she didn't see any of those rumors come to life in her friends.

"What's up?" Said Finn easily, "how's your father doing?"

"Thank you for asking." She said flatly.

"Is there anything-"

"Thanks for asking is enough." She cut him off.

"So..." Jake walked in front of his younger, significantly more handsome brother, eager to change the subject. He looked at her bass guitar. "How's your music career going?"

She sensed the tension between them. Someone had recently tried to kill her father; an event that made news. That's why they were uneasy around her. She smiled at them, trying to knock away the ice. "It's okay, guys, you don't need to walk on eggshells with me."

"Still..." said Finn, talking past Jake.

She sighed. "I'm not at liberty to discuss my family, or its business." They were her friends, but they were still technically cops. Jake had it in him to let certain things slide, but Finn could never keep a secret from his superiors, it was against his nature.

"But aren't you a civilian?" Said Finn incredulously. Jake looked him in the eye as if to say 'let it slide,' but he kept his attention on her.

"Yes, and so I don't get involved." She replied to him. "If I talked about it, that would be getting involved." She shook her head, then, shook it more rapidly. "We're putting this in the past, now, got it?"

"_Please stand by for the fifth inaugural address." _Spoke a mechanical voice that boomed smoothly throughout the streets.

She turned, and saw the huge screen had turned on. It showed a huge stage, the centerpiece of which was an exquisite podium with dozens of microphones. Standing next to the podium was a short, bald man in a tailcoat, whose eyes bore a look of blank dispassion. He raised an arm at the podium, and spoke: "Ladies and gentlemen, President Bonnibel Bubblegum!"

Camera flashes could be seen on the TV, and the crowd on the street roared in applause as a woman walked onto the stage. Her thick, ankle-length pink hair was done into two huge, George Washington-esque curls at the sides of her head. The rest hung back off her head. Her attire looked like it belonged in the sixteenth century, its gaudiness suppressed only by its pink monocolor.

President Bubblegum waited for the crowd to settle down before beginning to speak. Her voice sounded like it belonged in wonderland; impudent, yet also soft, and easy on the ears. "It is with tremendous honor, and humility that I accept the position as your president, with all the power, and responsibility that entails. I am truly humbled that you, the people, have seen fit to elect me a fifth time."

The crowd attending the stage on TV clapped in resounding number. Then it died down.

She continued. "It has been nearly two centuries since our forefathers won their, and by extension our freedom from Italian rule, and established a nation of freedom and justice for all." More clapping erupted again. She spread her arms. "This nation is one of unparalleled prosperity..."

The raven haired girl looked over, and saw more bodily waste being dumped on the street from an upper window.

"Culture..."

She saw someone being arrested by an overweight cop, the suspect was a perfectly respectable looking person who wore a suit and tie.

"Dignity..."

She spotted an American flag hanging off a government office. Its proud red, white and green were bleached to nothing from overexposure to sunlight.

"Beauty..."

Numerous buildings in the city had been recently painted, a splash of rich, bright color that couldn't be more offensive to the eyes if they were covered in excrement. Some of them were.

"And love."

The girl heard something, over the quiet made by the airing of the address, it was steppings on the street, in a pattern entailing a struggle. She looked in the direction of the sound, and saw something unlike anything she saw that day, something sinister.

Far down one of the streets, there was a glimpse; a young woman was being taken into an alleyway. It was only glimpses, but she saw physical signals that she was under the influence of drugs. The men pushily taking her into the alleyway did not look like the clowns who openly wandered the streets. They were real thugs. Everybody's attention was focused on the speech, and they didn't notice this happening.

She looked at Finn and Jake, who in turn noticed her looking at them and took their attention off the screen above. She indicated with her head for them to follow her.

Seeing the serious look on her face, they didn't raise an objection, and followed her.

She slipped through the still crowd, their eyes still glued to the television. Needing to move fast, she sped up, taking the risk of hitting somebody.

A wandering pedestrian was walking sluggishly, obliviously, into her path.

"_Move!"_

As though puppeteered, her exclamation caused him to not only notice her coming his way, but jump out of the way to let her move unobstructed.

It was only a hunch, she thought to herself. What she saw were merely glimpses, and patterns that could be easily owed to chance. But still...

Once free of the main crowd in the round intersection, she bolted for the alleyway she saw the glimpses in. Finn and Jake were right behind her. She reached the alleyway.

What she saw not only vivified the hunch in the edges of her mind, but did so to a horrifying degree, intensified by how close she was to disregarding it. The young woman was up against the wall, surrounded by five or six ragged-looking men. She was laughing uncontrollably, wanting to jerk her head around. Indeed, she was drugged. And the men crowding on her wore on their faces the sort of smiles that entailed a supreme lack of intelligence, and also the will to use violence to compensate for that.

The raven haired girl walked into the alleyway. "Hey! What the hell are you doing!"

The thugs all turned at her, unhappy with being interrupted. Several of them pulled guns, aiming them at her. "You better piss off little girl!"

She saw Finn and Jake enter the sides of her vision with their own guns. Their handguns glinted like chrome, and had highly advanced laser sights. "P.S.S.!" Shouted Finn, holding out a badge with his other hand, "place your weapons on the ground, now!"

The girl with raven hair saw where this was going, the thugs weren't the type to allow themselves to get arrested. This was going to be a Mexican standoff.

She stepped forward, past Finn and Jake, who moved in front of her to shield her in the event of a shootout, and then she placed her hands on their arms, calmly lowering their guns. Her bass guitar was hanging by its strap behind her back. She looked all the thugs in the eye. "My name is Marcelini Abadeer, daughter of Hunson Abadeer."

Every one of the lowlife thugs recognized that name. The Abadeers were a renowned organized crime family. And Hunson Abadeer was one of the most powerful men in the city. Seeing her face, they began to panic. If they shot her, it would be the end of them.

Before they did anything, Marcelini spoke to them again. "Walk away, all of you, and you will not be accountable, you have my word."

They understood her offer, and knew they could not refuse it. They lowered their weapons. Finn walked up on them, probably intending to arrest them, but she grabbed his shirt, stopping him.

He looked back at her, as if to say 'what the flip?'

"Did you not hear me?" She said to him. "I said they're not accountable."

"They're criminals."

"They're walking away from this." They were indeed walking in the other direction, leaving the woman, whom they drugged up, alone. "I just saved your life, Finn." She let go, and walked over to the victim, placing a hand on her forehead. She was no doctor, but it was worth checking. Marcelini turned back to Finn and Jake. "This woman needs help, can you guys report this to someone?"

"Already did," said Jake as he flipped shut a portable radio with a built-in camera. "Ambulence'll be here in a few minutes."

She walked past them, back toward the street. After standing at the border between the alley and sidewalk for a few seconds, she let her body sag. The adrenalin of the moment was wearing off.

Finn came up beside her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "You all right, Marcelini?" He'd been in situations like that before, and understood how nerve-wracking they could be.

She laughed lightly, wheezily. "That was actually... really scary."

He smiled at her. "You saved our hoochas back there, as well as that woman. She could have easily been hit if that situation went south." He had to say it, to make up for his attitude a minute ago.

Marcelini looked to the right along the street, and saw the ambulance coming. "Well, it's over now." Thank Glob. She looked at Finn and Jake together. "My day is open, what about you guys?"

They both nodded.

"Let's hang out then." They let the paramedics coming out of the ambulance van see to the woman in the alleyway as they walked along the cobblestone streets of New Rome.


	2. The Riverside

**This story is a bit of an exercise. It is to be told entirely from Marcelini's perspective, with none of the scene shifting I'm normally prone to.**

**Enjoy!**

A tall steamboat went along the river, which was flanked left and right with thick urban zones. As the boat went along, its engine huffed, and its smokestack let out thick coal fumes into the sky. The boat's pilot was slouched atop the deck, lazily holding to a control lever as his boat steamed through the thick water traffic of the city.

It was oblivious as it approached a drawbridge lowering into place, far too low for the steamboat to pass under. The driver smashed a small rowboat as he continued along the river full throttle.

Having no choice, the drawbridge lifted again, stopping the land traffic above. The steamboat passed by, oblivious as it was in its approach. "Butthole!" Shouted an echo that came from anywhere, and was obviously directed at the boat driver.

Marcelini observed this scene from an outdoor riverside cafe, elevated on a cobblestone platform. The sun beamed down, and a cool breeze passed through unobstructed. Finn and Jake, the Werecanine brothers, were at the table with her. They had just settled the affair with the alleyway and the assault, and were now hanging out.

Jake had his radio to his ear, and was listening intently to the other side, once he switched off and set it on the table, Marceline leaned over a bit. "So, that woman alright?"

Jake looked at her in surprise, his foldy facial skin tightening a bit. It was as if he had his own repertoire of unique facial expressions. "She's in the hospital. They say it's all cool. More importantly," he turned to Finn, who was slouching back, enjoying the sweet aroma coming from the cafe kitchen and trying to doze off. "Finn, the local department wants us to I.D. The assailants."

Finn groaned, still slouching. "In other words, look through like a hundred books and finger the mugshots matching the faces we saw."

"That's right."

"Do we have to? That would take all day."

The bulldog man shook his head. "Of course not, we're P.S.S. agents, We can just say we got better things to do."

The blonde, fair skinned young man kept to his slouch, letting out a relieved exhale. "Awesome."

Marcelini didn't want to consider that topic any more. The emergency was done, and now they could just hang out. In that light, she was on the same wavelength with Finn. Jake stood taller than both of them as the only real adult of the three. She and Finn were in their late teens. She saw her bass guitar leaning on the table, and absently picked it up. Out of impulsiveness borne of her absent state of mind, she held it to play, moving her hand and fingers over the strings, running the scenario of playing different notes and lines she had done many times before.

"_To smooth out relations between the U.S., and this belligerent nation."_

This sound came from the television mounted near the corner of the building. She could barely hear it. The screen showed a map of northeast Asia, with a portion of east Russia bordered off. She turned toward behind the counter, within the building. "Hey, Tree Trunks!"

A short old lady lifted her head up, from behind the counter.

Marcelini pointed at the TV. "You mind turning this up?"

Tree Trunks reached over the counter, and threw a remote at her.

She caught it naturally. "Thanks!"

"Your pies will be out in a minute dear." The old lady replied.

Jake eagerly patted his stomach when he heard this.

She pointed the remote at the TV, and turned up the volume. "_It has been confirmed that this belligerent nation, calling itself a 'free and sovereign Siberia' has been orchestrated by one Issac Kingston, a known anarchist and former Russian politician, whose alleged mental instability had earned him immense scrutiny from his peers." _A photo appeared on the screen, with a picture of a man whose features were dominated by an enormous white beard and hair mane. _"One unproven story suggests he was deported from Moscow when photos were found in his quarters, depicting U.S. President Bubblegum, among many other foreign politicians, all of them female."_

Finn shifted restlessly, he and Jake were also watching the news broadcast. Jake looked his way. "Somethin' up bro?"

He shook his head. "I don't know, I just have the weirdest urge to beat that guy up."

"That is weird," Jake reinforced. "Get it under control, or I'm taking you to see a shrink."

"_Moscow's official statement on the matter claims they have no plans on reclaiming Russian land with force, as it's 'only Siberia.'"_

"Makes sense," remarked Marcelini. "All of Siberia could fit in the south Bronx."

"_We recently caught up with a Siberian delegate, who was in Alaska on his way to Washington." _The screen shifted to live footage of an airfield in a frigid wilderness. In front of the camera was a figure who was so warmly dressed that their face was indiscernible. A news anchor put a mic up to their face. "_Ambassador Gunther, is it true you hope to speak with the president in person?"_

Ambassador Gunther pulled his muffler down, uncovering a mouth. "Who is known for obsessively micromanaging U.S. foreign policy, yes."

"_And, can you give our viewers any idea what your stance is going to be? Does this new country have anything to announce, and do you hope to be recognized as a legitimate nation?"_

"I'll tell you what I'm gonna do," said Gunther, looking straight into the camera. "I'm gonna come to Washington, I'm gonna sit the president down, then I'm gonna look her dead in the eye, and I'm going to to say...: Don't blow up my country."

The footage immediately cut away to the station. _"And that's all the time we have, in other news..."_

Marcelini muted the television, not caring for the other news. She looked to Finn and Jake, "Issac Kingston, think he might end up on America's wanted list?"

"Marcy," said Jake. "You got things you can't talk about, and so do we."

"Alright, that's cool." She didn't want to be difficult about that. She regarded her friendship with them as an an anchor indicating that she was succeeding in not getting involved in her father's business. And their refusal to talk about certain things was, to her mind, done for similar reasons and for the sake of the same thing.

"Order up!" Tree Trunks shouted. There were three hot, steaming pies on the serving counter. Finn and Jake got up to fetch them, leaving Marcelini alone at the table.

"Issac Kingston, he's pretty well known in Europe."

Marcelini turned to the source of the voice, it was a person standing near her table. He wore thin bandages over every part of his body and most of his face, covered with a vest and baggy shorts, with his bandaged feet going into sandals.

"What are you doing here?"

Finn and Jake were coming back to the table, carrying their pies.

"Well known," the bandaged man continued, "for talking too much, should listen to the guy drone on and on..."

"You've met him," she said as Finn and Jake stopped near the table, looking at him with curiosity. "Finn, Jake," she said to them as she indicated the bandaged man. "This is Scorcher, he works for my father, as a..." she stopped.

"Soldier," said Scorcher, "it's not an insult, I'm quite proud of my work," his mouth was concealed behind his bandages.

"Scorcher, these two work for the P.S.S." Marcelini said to him hastily, afraid he might have given them ground to arrest him.

Scorcher looked straight at Finn and Jake, who were setting their apple pies on the table. "I got five killers with badges working for me-"

"All right, that's enough!" Said Marcelini. "What are you doing here, Scorcher?"

Scorcher shifted attention from them to her. "Some people tried to kill the don."

"I heard, I also heard he's fine."

"That he is." Said Scorcher, "he ripped the attacker's heart out."

"Okay, Scorcher, we're eating here..."

"Literally."

"Thank, you, Scorcher." She said with more force.

"It still tried to beat in his hand-"

"_Scorcher!_"

He stopped speaking.

Marcelini sighed, "just tell me why you're here."

Scorcher paused for a moment, then began speaking as though the conversation were carrying naturally. "Since people have it out for your dad, he got all worried and asked me to check up on you."

"Well, as you can see, I'm fine."

"He'd also like for you to-"

"I'll come home when I'm ready to come home."

"Okay," he said immediately as he turned to leave.

Jake watched him leave, and turned to Marcelini. He swallowed his fistful of pie, "He's got a point, maybe you should head home."

She got started on her pie. "No worries, I have you two with me; two highly trained P.S.S. agents."

Finn was frowning into his pie. "Our duties are very clearly defined, we're not supposed to bodyguard a crime boss' daughter. The fact that we're friends is a personal matter."

Marcelini swallowed her next pie bite. It was delicious. "What was that stuff in the alleyway then? I'm sure your duty is not to patrol the streets, looking for petty criminals either."

"That was a coincidence," Finn rebutted. "We weren't 'patrolling the streets,' we saw it happen, and reacted according to the law, nothing more."

Marcelini put up a finger, she had to catch up to Finn and Jake's progress on their pies. Once she took a few more forkfuls, she continued. "You're not 'protecting me' either. You're my friends, who are also P.S.S. agents, and we're hanging out. And if you coincidentally happen to see an attempted kidnapping or murder, you're obliged to prevent it, no?"

Finn considered this as they ate in silence. Then he shook his head. "We'd still be accessories. Far as the courts, and the crime families are concerned, they could easily convince everyone that we were there as your bodyguards, even if it isn't true."

"That'd be the case," said Jake, "if it were anybody but Don Abadeer."

"What do you mean?" Finn asked.

"Y'see, Finn," Jake touched his shoulder. "When the U.S. Entered the World War, our eastern shipping docks, all of them, kept running into a packstorm-monkeyfest of problems and setbacks. Needless to say, this seriously hurt the war effort."

"And?"

"Well, what I'm about to tell you is a federal secret. It was carefully negotiated so that the public not know. But everybody at this table," he glanced at Marcelini, "has either got adequate clearance, or already knows."

"Don't hold me in suspense."

Jake continued. "It was Don Abadeer who made all those problems disappear. He's got a lot of goodwill from the Federal Government."

"I see," said Finn. Then he shook his head. "No, a criminal is a criminal. I'd arrest him on the spot if I could."

Marcelini ate her pie faster, growling in anger.

"Did I... say something bad?" Finn was a bit taken aback.

"I hate it!"

The outburst was enough to make Jake stop chewing his pie. "What do you hate?" He said easily, through a full mouth.

She settled down. "I hate... no, I don't hate my family. What I hate is who they are interfering with my life."

Finn was looking at the river right next to the cafe. "It's just some difficulties, you'll get past them, right? I mean, it's not like anything is set in stone."

Marcelini sighed. "My dad, he wants me to be the one to take over the business."

"So why not do it?" Jake was slouched back, already having finished his pie. "You'd be set for life!"

"No."

"Jake, what's wrong with you?" Finn burst out.

Jake was still relaxed, "little bro, if I only said things I deemed absolutely perfect, I'd be a very quiet man."

"I'm not a contrarian though, not a rebel." Marcelini stood up, "I did give it some thought. And I think I would do an amazing job, if I became head of the family." She readied her guitar to play, and began hitting notes, to a slow, calm tune. "_My dad would be proud, and my name would go down..._" She was drifting into singing.

Jake reached down, and pulled a viola out of its case.

"_But is it so..!_" She played a chain of rising notes. "_Un-believ-ea-ble... that it is not..._"

Finn stood up, utilizing his knack for vocals to lay down a supplementary line of notes.

"_Whaaaat.. I.. want.. for my life?_"

"Hey!" The voice was strained, hard, and extended. It hinted at a disapproval that probably wasn't meant.

The interrupted trio looked toward Tree Trunks, who had interrupted them. She indicated a large podium off on the side of the stone terrace the café tables were set up on. It had a mic on a stand, and two huge speakers on either side, forming a stereo setup. "I made you guys a stage for that!" They were regulars at her place.

They looked at each other, then at the stage. No words were necessary, they took their instruments and went over to the stage.


	3. House Abadeer

Calm were the cobblestone streets of New Roma. She walked alone, in the direction of home. The evening had cast its quiet, calm and cold over the city. A cold that suppressed even the stinky stuff on the roads, seeped through the stone and smashed flat into nothing by constant traffic, but whose odor stubbornly wished to endure.

Dim, colorful dusklight illuminated the calm streets. There were people still out and about, and the regular passing car. But compared to several hours earlier, it was like the peak of a mountain.

It finally felt safe enough to take a deep breath, refreshing when free of the liability of invisible puffs of stink.

Uneventful was her stroll; no happenings, no peculiar noises, and no familiar faces. Uneventful was a synonym for normal. Indeed, it would be strange if yet another incident occurred that day.

As she traveled the streets of New Roma, the scenery changed from generally filthy urban structures to cleaner buildings made of brick or well-used plaster. She was entering a more upper class residential zone, indicated by that none of the buildings had sewage all over them, and the streets didn't smell near as bad.

She advanced past this part of town, the streets of which were even more sparse of pedestrians and traffic, in part because of time moving deeper into the evening, and in part because people living in this area tended to retire at a respectable time.

She heard rhythmic patting nearby, produced by stray animals running on stone, and allowed into her earshot by the inactive silence of the evening.

Eventually, she reached an immense iron gate, housed within a stone wall. All blocking off an expansive green field within. The road beyond the gate veered to the left, out of view.

A man in a came into view behind the gate. He saw her, and took out a small remote. The gate unlocked when he pressed a button on it. As the gate swung open, she passed through.

"Evenin', Miss Abadeer." Said the gate guard.

"To you, too," she said as she passed by.

The gate man went back inside a small cubby on the inward side of the gatehouse. There were a few other guys in there, and they were playing cards next to a large surveillance monitor.

She continued along the road, hearing the gate swing shut behind her. Ahead to the left and right was an expanse of cut grass, shrubberies, garden parks and small buildings ranging from scenic outlook platforms to souped up tool sheds.

The concrete road led to the centerpiece of the estate; a marble monstrosity atop the highest ground. Fortress and palace, it held a terrain dominance, overlooking the entire area within the walls.

It wasn't until she became older that she realized that the mansion was a perfect mix of beauty and defensibility. Anything that passed the wall surrounding the property was a trespasser, and also visible from the central high ground the mansion was built on. It was a brilliant setup; the wall was merely a deterrent, meant to be easily bypassed. The real main line of defense was the sheer distance over open ground to reach the mansion after getting past any part of the wall.

In spite of the warlike intent in its design, it was probably the most well-thought out architecture in all of New Roma.

She reached the end of the road, and the stairs leading up to the patio to the front double doors of the house. The road veered off into a parking area nearby. She came to the door, and it was opened for her, by a hunched over old man who smiled dumbly but sweetly. He was the family butler, referred to as the Door Lord from his days as a world-class locksmith, and his diligence in always answering the door. He didn't have a tongue, but always liked to hum to express his mood, which was almost always cheerful. She nodded to his dumbly cheerful face as she came inside.

The first room was not symmetrical. The right was a row of wide room sections with no walls blocking them from the corridor, only from each other. A high ceiling revealed the second floor above on the right, and visible arches supporting it. On the left was a tall-ceilinged room, not quite as tall as the second floor ceiling, whose walls were glass on three of the four sides. The room within was a bar complete with tables, and the doors inside were on the corner pieces of its glass walls.

The mansion always had a sizable amount of people staying or visiting. It was not just her family's home, but also the headquarters for her father's entire organization. It was a huge empire, and he had a lot of associates and saw a lot of people.

She spotted a man in a dark green sweater vest sitting at a bench next to the wall on the left past the bar. He was gigantic, easily bigger than anybody else in view, even as he sat on the low bench with his knees up high. He was staring ahead into space.

She recognized him as Donny Controdual, also known simply as D.C. He was her father's bodyguard. Not long ago, he was a short-tempered adolescent who went around bullying the otherwise peaceful people in his neighborhood. When a newspaper story fingered him and got him jail time, his neighborhood suddenly became harassed by vandals and con-men who were previously scared to wander into that area because of Donny's presence and intimidating size.

Her father heard about this, and recognized that such intimidation was precisely how Italians ran protection rackets efficiently. He was amazed at how it occurred naturally in Donny's neighborhood. With this, he bailed Donny out of jail and recruited him.

She stopped next to him, undaunted by his giant size and indifferent demeanor, she stood next to him facing away from the bench, and put a hand on his shoulder. "How's life, Donny?"

He looked over her way, then went back to staring ahead, saying nothing. He used to be loud, and prone to extreme mood swings. But meeting her father transformed his attitude into the strong, quiet type.

"What happened on the hit, the... attempt on my father's life?" She knew he was there, he accompanied her father whenever he left home.

Without changing his facing, he began to speak. "The boss was out buying fruit. Two guys came in, and started running him up. They had concealed pistols."  
"Short barrels?"

He nodded. "The boss had a bigger gun, he shot them both before they got too close."

"Any idea who's behind it?"  
Donny shook his head. "Hitters were brought in, nobody recognized em'. One was still breathing, and we interrogated him. But he didn't say mum. The boss got mad, and tore his-"

"Okay, I already heard that part, thanks."

He looked over at her, his face was light, and his eyebrows slightly raised. "I'm sorry 'bout saying that, Marcy, a lady shouldn't have to hear about that stuff. It ain't civil."

The last thing she expected Donny to behave like was a gentleman. She stood up, patting him on the shoulder. "Whoever said I was one?" He looked up at her face, and she was smiling. Then she walked away. She didn't know what that would do, only that it would accomplish her aim; making him not feel so bad about speaking freely.

She continued past, heading for a staircase just ahead. As she rose up the steps, another figure, leaning against the wall, came into view. It was a tall, lanky man in an obnoxious green suit. His face and hair were anything but Italian. He was looking her way as she came up. She knew nearly everybody who worked closely with her father. A byproduct of living in the same house with him. And this guy was called Magus Manfred, nicknamed the Magic Man for his unparalleled talent as a lawman. He was middle-aged, with a receding hairline.

He didn't speak as she approached, so she turned left, passing him by. He got up from leaning on the wall and walked beside her. She felt obliged to say something, as his petty actions of that moment were shaped by her presence. She searched her mind for a subject, and found one. "There gonna be a trial?" He knew what she was talking about, he was her father's lawyer, and so it concerned him.

"There is," he replied. "But it's a clear walk. Clean cut case of self defense. They were gripping their weapons and running toward him when he shot them."

"Did they note the gruesome bit?" It interested her, she wondered what the law said about ripping somebody's heart out.

Magus shook his head. "The attackers didn't even belong in this country, no ID, no passports. Therefore no aggrieved party to make any testimony. Mister Abadeer has got nothing to worry about, he just needs to show up in court for about an hour."

She wanted to say that was good to hear, but decided against it. "So, why are you following me?"

"Why are you going to see Mister Abadeer?" She was heading in the direction of his office.

She shrugged. "I was out all day. I don't want to give him the sense that I'm avoiding him."

Magus Manfred began to huff in laughter. "Only you."

"Only I what?"

"Only you would say something like that, in that context."

She tried to read what he was thinking. "I know he's frightening to nearly everybody, and for good reason. I'm one of the few people on Earth who has nothing to fear from him. Is it so weird that I'm aware of that?"

He shook his head as they continued along the hallway. It had a high, arched ceiling, and a hard floor with a long rug going all along the center. "No, the way you're aware of what he might think of things. The way you consider that he might be misled into thinking something if you don't bend a bit to disavow his assumption. Do you see? You've come to an interaction with him in which you are in control, the one whose mind and decision determines the outcome."

She considered this as they walked along the corridor. There weren't any other people in this part of the mansion. "I think... you're skipping out one thing."

"What?"  
"The fact that his thoughts of me are never going to be entirely objective. I'm his child, so of course he's not going to have his guard up like he would with other people. And the fact that I'm his child is a bias having nothing to do with my own capacity; I was born his child."

Magus slowly formed a smile, "he has high hopes for you, you know."

She sighed, "when I made my decision, I made myself ready to say this a thousand times: I don't want to take his place. I don't want to become involved in his business."

"You'd be an amazing don."

"I'm a girl. It's as unheard of here as in Italy for a family to be led by a female."

Magus spread his arms in an exaggerated shrug. "Ever since that mad, pink genius got elected into the Gold House, the gender barriers in our culture have been evaporating. By the time you're ready to succeed your father, the family'll be ready to accept you."

It was obvious now that Magus Manfred and her father had been talking among themselves about her. Talking about her future. Trying to decide her future for her.

She stopped in front of the door to his office, "if you'll excuse me, Magus, I'm going to have a word with him."

"About what?"

She turned around to face him, and then smiled lightheartedly. "To say hi, of course." She turned the knob, and walked into the room.

Hunson Abadeer was facing the window behind his desk, holding a telephone to his ear. A dark suit, that almost seemed to absorb the light from the room, was not enough to hide his immense physique. His pitch black hair was slicked back and tucked under his ears, ending in a controlled array of thick, short calligraphic zigzag shapes behind his neck.

She walked into the office, and saw Scorcher sagged down on one of the chairs on the far left. She went left around the corner of the brief entrance hall into the office, and leaned back against the wall. Her father was a perfectly busy person, she could wait for his phone call to finish.

Magus Manfred walked up to stand next to the desk, waiting for the same thing.

Hunson nodded, still facing the window, and then spoke, "no, not an issue at all, I'll-"

The door to the office opened again, the person entering walked rapidly into the room. This person wore a pantsuit colored dark brown with a red tint, coloring that clashed perfectly with her auburn hair. She saw Hunson on the phone, and then looked to the left, and smiled at seeing who she saw. "Hey, Marcy." She said in a hushed, but still perfectly legible tone.

"What's up, Penny?" She replied as she nodded in salutation.

At age 12, Penny was the de-facto leader of a gang of fellow children who went around pickpocketing and swindling people on the streets of New Roma. One day, Penny successfully picked Hunson Abadeer's wallet. While she was making her getaway, Hunson pulled his handgun and fired into the air. The deafening sound of the gunshot made Penny fall over from shock, feeling like she had picked the wrong pocket and he had shot her. She remained on the ground out of fright. As the people on the street ran away, screaming in panic, he walked up to her, and told her to return his wallet. She got up on her feet, and did as he said.

When he took his wallet back from her open palms, he picked her up and held her tush under his arm, holding her face close to his own face in a kind, civil manner. Then he asked her if she would like a job, and she said yes. She lived at the Abadeer estate from then on, working as an errand girl. During this time, she and the younger Marcelini became friends.

When Penny got older, they started trusting her with more complex, sometimes more risky work than simple errands. When her dependability and competence became apparent, she rose through the ranks, recently having become a lieutenant.

Penny's freckled face produced a sideways grin that showed her top teeth. "I'll tell you what's up Marcy. I just figuratively returned home from the freaking war. A huge mess of problems that can now be written off as solved."

Hunson Abadeer turned around, revealing his face. An Italian face that looked to have belonged to the Caesars of old. It was tall, with cheeks that curved slightly inward, slightly exaggerated bone extremities, and a pair of hard lines curving diagonally along his forehead.

Even without an expression, he looked like the angriest man on the planet.

Still holding the phone to his ear, he continued to speak into it. "Of course, someone will be over, right away." He took the phone away from his ear, then looked straight at Penny as he tapped the talk speaker with his index finger, lifting his eyebrows.

Penny read the signal, and turned around, "just splendid, more crap to wipe up!" Then she looked to her right. "Been nice seeing you Marcy."

"And you too, Penny."

Penny stormed out of the office, and slammed the door shut.

Hunson Abadeer already set the phone on the receiver. He paused there for a moment. Then he looked her way. "Be with you in a moment, dear." Contrary to his terrifying face, his voice was almost always softspoken.

"Take your time, dad."

He turned to Scorcher, who was buried in a chair, trying to make himself as anonymous as possible, "Scorcher."

"Y... yeah boss?"  
"I gave you a job today. I told you to keep an eye on my daughter if she refused to come home immediately. And what did you do?"

"I... lost her, sir."

"Don't be too hard on him dad." She interjected. "I lost him on purpose. It's not his fault if his eyes can't tell this.." she grabbed a tuft of her lush, black hair, "fabulous mane from a black leopard pelt being worn over the head of a man."

Hunson looked at Scorcher. "Is this true?"

Scorcher nodded. "I was locked on her distinctive hair, her decoy led me in circles for an hour before I realized what was up."

He was running a hand over his face. "Okay then, you're dismissed."

Scorcher tentatively rose from his seat. "What... what do you want me to do now?"

"Go find Penny, do whatever she asks."

Scorcher left the office, eager to get away from his disappointed boss.

When the door shut, Hunson began to pace in front of his desk. He turned to his daughter. "Scorcher is a first rate sneaker. How did you know-"

"You're predictable."

He raised a finger, but then let it drop. "Who were your decoys?"  
"My friends, Finn and Jake."

"How did you get them to go along with it?"

"We thought it'd be fun."

"Was it?"

"For me? Very."

He took a deep breath, and exhaled, stopping his pace to lean casually on the desk. "I'm glad you came, Marcelini. There's something I wish to discuss-"

"Dad, I already told you, I don't want it."

He put up a finger, "now hear me out." His voice became lower, faster, harder.

"I already told her about what we discussed." Magus Manfred interjected.

He looked at him, "how much of it?"

"Pretty much all of it. Her answer is still no though."

He sighed, "Marcelini, I wish you would at least consider-"

"I have considered it, dad. That's what you don't understand. I gave it a lot of thought." She got off the wall she was leaning on. "I don't want to become like you, but..." she walked up to him. "The last thing I want to be to you is cruel. I know you want our family name to continue, and I know you see a lot of potential in me." They were looking each other directly in the eye, yet still she calmly approached, and put a hand on his shoulder. "But it just isn't what I want to do with my life. I'd... be happy... if you understood that."

Hunson shut his eyes, keeping his head still. Then, he inhaled, stood up straight, and wrapped his arms around his daughter all in one motion, holding her in a tight hug. "Oh, Marcelini, I'm not gonna be one-tracked about this." He let her loose, looking her face to face. "I would rather my child be strong, and free, and not want what I want for her, than all those things in inverse."

She felt a powerful relief, like something heavy, and ugly had been rid from existence. "Dad, you've... really surprised me."

He laughed out loud as he walked toward the door out of the office, She and Magus following, knowing he had to lock it up. "I sure as math better still be capable of that."


	4. Night on the Town

**Kinda breakin' mah word here. This chapter is from a different perspective. Still no scene shifting though.**

**Enjoy!**

Finn lifted his head, surveying the tight space in which he sat. He was sitting on a side bench inside of a large military plane. Its engines roared outside in the cold night air.

"The situation is tenuous." Said a man in a brown suit sitting across from him. "The terrorist has holed up in the Tendime bank building in south Manhattan, deep in New Roma."

Finn nodded, having not spoken since getting on the plane. A black leopard pelt sat next to him on the bench. He was wearing it over his head when he was contacted for the mission. Helping Marcelini dodge Scorcher by posing as a decoy.

The man continued as he adjusted his spectacles. "He has hostages, and claims to have dynamite rigged on the lower foundation."

"How many?"

"Bogeys, or hostages?"  
"Why don't you tell me both."

He nodded. "Mmm, right. There's at least ten bogeys, confirmed armed and dangerous. Twenty hostages in the building confirmed, though there may be more unaccounted. The terrorist ringleader goes by the alias 'Princess Cookie'."

"What's his nationality?"  
"A native-born, full citizen American. With no criminal record that precedes this."

Finn couldn't hold in a hard exhale. "What's his beef?"

"We don't know, he's kinda crazy. Our negotiator is lost at the wheel."

"What about the other tangos?"

"No info. Sightings confirm they're all European, but beyond that nothing. The Banana Corps have formed a perimeter around the building, but they can't storm the place out of fear of the dynamite. If it detonates, it might bring the entire building down." The Banana Corps, also known as the Banana Guard, was a civilian law enforcement agency modeled after England's Scotland Yard. They've gained a lot of popularity over the last ten years, and have spread to every major city. If they didn't exist, the perimeter would have had to be handled by the military rolling into the city.

Finn was studying blueprints of the building. "It's pretty easy to guess which parts are rigged up, if the intent is to make the whole thing come down." He looked up. "Where are you guys sticking Jake?"  
"Your brother is being prepped to go into the front door undercover as a delivery man. His mission is to divert the enemy, while you go in topside, confirm the presence of explosives, and disarm them if there are."

Finn nodded. He was equipped for the mission, with a black parachute and ops suit that would camouflage him against the night sky. He had his pistol, as well as a pressure gun that shot tranquilizer darts. He had training in bomb diffusal, and the tools for it.

The man crossed his arms. "This is a highly hazardous mission, and we pulled you in on very short notice. Are you up for it?"

Finn stood up as he picked up a soft, black cap. He combed his lush, golden hair back as he placed the cap over the top, sides, and back of his head, pulling the goggles over his eyes. "Just let me know when we're over the target."

The serious looking man lifted an eyebrow impersonally. "You P.S.S. people have a certain... reputation. I look forward to seeing how you perform."

They remained in eye contact for agonizingly long seconds. Then Finn broke into a grin as he walked toward the shut ramp in the rear of the plane's fuselage. "If, when this is over, the hostages have returned safely, and the perpetrators of this are taken in, I'll walk away happy."

A few more seconds of silence. "Good luck, Finn Werecanine." He pulled a switch, and the ramp opened, letting in the howling noise of the engines, as well as chilling night air.

When the red light next to the ramp switched to green, Finn walked to the edge of the open ramp, and let himself tip off the edge, falling into the open air.

He fell freely through the chilling air, observing the vast metropolis of New Roma beneath him. The cityscape was lit against the night. He had to find his target.

As he fell, Finn spotted a building surrounded by purple spotlights that beamed straight into the sky. That was his mark. He let the orientation of his fall pass the area above the mark, then opened his parachute. It caught air, and his fall became slowed. The parachute let down a pair of handles with which he could control his fall.

Finn made a loose turnaround back toward the building. The buildings in south Manhattan were very tall, having gotten close, it was easy to tell which was his target without the purple lights. With this, he pressed a button on a transponder. This caused the purple spotlights to be switched off by the men on the ground who received his signal. It wouldn't do to have the lights give him away in his approach.

His roundabout turn brought him to a perfect trajectory to be over the building when he was low enough to land on its roof. He landed on a concrete terrace in the roof area, which was an intricate web of outdoor catwalks and walkways with metal railings.

Finn landed on his feet. He looked ahead, to where the walk went indoors, and to the left and right. He saw a silhouette against the lit city, standing near the corner in one direction. They weren't aware of his presence.

He pulled his tranq pistol and shot the silhouette, watching it drop on the spot. The person was at least twelve meters away, but he was an expert marksman. The tranquilizer pistol was quiet, he didn't need to worry about noise.

The next second, his face had the muzzle of a gun up to it. A man had come out from the indoors right ahead of him. Finn stood up slowly from his crouch as the man kept the muzzle to his face.

"_Who are you? What are you doing here!_" The man shouted in Russian.

Finn only needed a second, he kept his wits about him. He lifted his goggles up, revealing his eyes and looking at him with an expective, and slightly angry gaze. "_I should ask that of you!_" Finn rebutted in fluent Russian. "_Why are you not at your post!_"

Realizing that Finn might be someone he wasn't told about, the man quickly lowered his gun. "_I'm sorry, I hadn't seen you before, so I assumed,_" he looked down at the parachute on the floor. "_What's this?_"

"_I found it here._" Finn said. "_We have an intruder._" He pointed over to the spot where he shot the silhouette. "_You search over there, and I'll take the west side._"

Happy that the misunderstanding ended on a civil note, he walked past, toward the direction Finn pointed.

Finn raised his tranquilizer gun and shot him in the back the second it was turned. Not wasting time, he took off his parachute backpack as the man collapsed on the floor.

"Status report," spoke a tiny audio wig in his ear.

Finn put pressure on the area on top of his ear hole with an index finger. "I'm on the roof. Two bogeys down, over." He was already walking along the doorless, indoor corridors, heading to where the blueprints said the entrance to the service stairway was.

"Jake has entered the building undercover. You have ten minutes to disarm the explosives."

"Roger that." Ten minutes was plenty of time. He found the service stairway, and went through the door, inside a plain, continuous shaft with a stairwell that went all the way to the ground floor.

Finn walked down the stairs naturally, acting as though he belonged there. The terrorists didn't have any kind of uniform, and they concealed their faces. With his own face hidden by his hat and goggles, blending among them was easy. They would have no way of telling he wasn't one of them at first sight.

As he trotted down the steps, another bogey came into view. While he was registering Finn trotting naturally down the steps, Finn quickly shot him with a tranq dart and he went down. He passed by naturally, without changing his rapid pace as the terrorist collapsed on the steps.

After a whole minute of going down the steps, he stopped at a door on the fourth floor. It was unlikely that if they had explosives, they would rig them any higher than here. Assuming the intent was to collapse the building, The dynamite would be set in maintenance hatchways in order to be close to the framework, and according to the blueprints, the hatchways were only on the ground floor, and every fourth floor up. Blowing the supports up in the eighth floor wouldn't destroy the building, so it left two plausible floors.

Finn advanced along the corridors and reached a maintenance hatch on the fourth floor without any run-ins. He figured there were no explosives, as if there were, somebody would probably be guarding them. A look inside the inspection hatch confirmed this. He pressed his earwig to to talk. "No sign of bombs on the fourth floor. What's the word from Jake? Over." Jake was on the ground floor. If there were explosives, they would be there, and he might notice them.

"He hasn't reported."

This made him worried, but he had to focus on the mission. Lives were at stake. He had to head to the ground floor himself, and neutralize the presence of explosives. Once that was seen to, the Banana Corps could storm the building.

Finn was aware that if he was dispatched, or the main body of the enemy were alerted to his presence, it would bury any chance of disarming the explosives if there were any. The Banana Corps would have to storm the building anyway, and if there was dynamite, a lot of people would get hurt or killed.

The pressure of this came to him, and then brushed off, sliding into irrelevancy. There was no point in feeling. He was in mission mode, there was no time for anything irrelevant, like feelings.

He stuck his head into the inspection hatch, and found that the area around the concrete column went all the way up and down within the housing. With this, he squeezed his slender frame inside feet first, and slid down with his knees and hands on the frame column, and his back and feet on the surrounding cover.

He let himself slide down, his full-body ops suit protected him from scraping as he made good time reaching the ground floor.

His knees bumped something, and he stopped. He looked down, and saw a floor, only about a meter down from where he was.

He straightened himself, and dropped the rest of the way. As he landed, his knees bent to absorb the fall, and slammed abruptly into the frame. Stopped unexpectedly at his feet and knees together, his leg bones were subjected to extreme stress. A ringing sensation accompanied the pain.

Finn looked straight ahead, at the frame piece. He turned on the night vision on his goggles, and what he saw made him want to poo himself.

The concrete column was drilled through in at least a dozen spots, and filled by fitted packets of plastic explosives. The packets had coiling cords that came out of the holes, and all converged on a central charge with a large detonation mechanism. The detonator had a small antenna, and no wires except those going to the auxiliary charges. It was set up to be detonated remotely. The bomb as a whole smelled like fresh baked cookies.

Finn pressed his earwig to talk. "...Presence of explosives confirmed. I'm... really scared." Someone, somewhere, probably in this building was holding a detonator. And if they chose, at that moment, to use that detonator, he'd be a dead man.

"Well? Disarm it then!"

Finn looked at the detonation mechanism, and found the screws. He promptly unscrewed them, and took the cover off the innards. The innards looked like a spaghetti bowl that was a portal to the spaghetti dimension. With enough wiring to knit an adult-sized onesey. He pressed talk on his earwig again. "I need you to forward me to Beemo."

"Beemo? Is that some kind of code name?"

His apprehension reached a boiling point. This was getting very stressful. "Okay, just forward me to P.S.S. HQ. They can get me Beemo."

"It's just dynamite, right? You can handle that!"  
"It's not dynamite!" He was breathing harder. "I need Beemo so just get me to the people who can get me Beemo!"

"Okay, relax. I'm forwarding you now..." A new voice came on. "This is P.S.S. Command, whaddya need, over?"

"Is Beemo in?"  
"Beemo's always in."

Thank Gob. "Put me on his line, then, over."

"Who is this?"

"Finn Werecanine."

Without another word, the line switched. "Finn? Issat you?"

The voice was childlike, slightly effeminate, and with a slight plastic echo. Finn had never met B.M.O. in person, so he had no idea whether it was a filter. "It's me Beemo. Do you have a minute?"

"Yeah Finn! I got several whole minutes!"

"Awesome." He took out a hand held camera with a wire bundle going into his belt. He positioned it, and turned off his night vision, "here, have a look at this." He took the picture. The flash rendered everything visible for a split second. Once it passed, he turned his night vision back on.

Finn heard a fax machine in the background, and someone taking the paper out. "Red and yellow." Said B.M.O.

"Wha-" he pressed talk. "You mind looking at it for more than half a second?"

"I designed that detonator, Finn!"

He paused... "You did?"  
"Yes, aren't you in the training room?"

Finn got past the confusion. "No, Beemo. This is real. So I need you to be absolutely certain. Because if this isn't done right, I'll be dead, you understand?"

There was a pause.

"Beemo? Time is kind of a factor here."

"It's red and yellow, I looked at the photo to be sure, and it is."

"You're certain? Really, really certain?"

"Finn, I swear on your soul."

That was the lowest, most unjustified blow he'd taken in a long time. But this was a mission, he would just have to trust the support. With cutters ready in his hand, he took the red and yellow wires, and snipped them both at the same time.

The detonator rig wasn't a computer, it had no lights or screens. And so there was no way to tell if it was disarmed. It could explode in his face. He would yet still have to trust it was disarmed.

Finn Werecanine shifted to turn around, and opened the inspection hatch. As it slowly swung open, he waited for there to be precisely enough space before shooting his head out to check the room. It was a walk-in closet. The lights were off, and it was deserted. He climbed out of the hatch and slowly shut it behind him.

He crossed the walk-in, and reached the door. It opened inward, which he was glad for, as he could slide it open a lot more discreetly.

He checked the corners in the corridor outside the walk-in. The corridor was deserted. The man on the plane said there were at least ten bogeys counting the ringleader. He'd dispatched three, the rest might all be with the hostages. There were four main columns in the building, presupposing four bombs. Guarding them all would mean pulling at least four guys away from the main group, leaving only three to guard the hostages. Which they weren't doing, as the bomb he disarmed had nobody guarding it. They were probably counting on guarding entry points into the building, with the guys on the roof. The one coming up the steps was moving to reinforce them. Power had been cut from the building, so he couldn't have taken the elevator.

Finn exited the walk-in, going right, away from the center of the building, where the lobby, hostages, and the bulk of the enemy were.

He reached a three-way going left and right in ninety degree turns. He put his back up to the wall, and turned his head over to check the hall.

Somebody was looking straight at him.

He immediately withdrew his head, and heard hard footsteps coming his way.

As the footsteps became closer, he remained calm, listening closely, objectively, to the footsteps. Then he stuck his pressure pistol around the corner, and blindfired.

He heard the assailant fall on the floor, his assault gun clattering a bit. And the halls became quiet again.

Finn rounded the corner, passing the now incapacitated enemy as he advanced along the hall. His tranquilizer darts were extremely potent, with an almost instantaneous effect. He preferred not to kill unless it was really necessary, and was glad to have a gun that shot them semi-automatic.

"Progress report."

Finn pressed his earwig. "One bomb disarmed, three to go. Four bogeys neutralized, I remain undetected, over."

"Four minutes remaining before we start the raid, understood?"

He had nothing to say to that, he reached the next walk-in with an inspection hatch.

"Answer me, Finn, are you there?"

He pressed talk as he opened the hatch with his other hand. "I thought you were still talking, you're supposed to end messages with 'over' or something."

His tone became harder, "I've already begun to draft my report of your performance-"

"And please keep the topic on things relevant to the mission at hand, over." He got the last screw out of the covering. The innards were almost identical to the last one.

"My report is going to say that the agent was rude and uncooperative-"

Having already snipped the red and yellow wires, he stuck his tweezers into his ear and took out the tiny bud talking to his drum. He placed it in a front pocket of his ops suit.

Finn exited the walk-in, and continued his circle around the outer floor.

Heading to the front half of the building, he passed by a hallway that led straight into the lobby. Ducking the corner showed that nobody was looking his general direction, and so he silently passed by the lobby's line of sight under cover of darkness from the building not having power.

"You better split, buddy. It's about to get all cray-cray in here." Said a voice in the lobby.

Finn stopped around the corner of the next hall, and listened.

"Look, if you give yourself up, I'll put in a word for you or something. You'll be under our protection." The voice was Jake's. "It's your best shot. They're not gonna be too nice to someone who threatened to set off a bomb in New Roma."

"They're not real bombs." Said the other voice. "They're all full of cookie dough."

That helped explain why they smelled like cookies. He'd once smelled a real plastic explosive that smelled like almond, so he wasn't too keen on a different kind smelling like cookies. Finn had to report this, they could go ahead with the seizure of the building. He dug around in his pocket for the tiny ear bud.

Entire minutes passed.

He finally got a grip on it with his fingers and put it back in his ear. "Control," he whispered with his finger on top of the skin just outside of his ear hole. "The bombs are all fake. You can begin your assault."

"Finn? Jake is already escorting their ringleader outside to a negotiated escape car."

What! He thought to himself, turning his head to the lobby. There were still terrorists there, and hostages bound, and lined up on their knees along the walls. But no sign of his brother or Cookie. It had been minutes between eavesdropping on them and getting his earwig back in. It occurred to him that a lot could happen in a few minutes.

He drew his tranquilizer pistol, and took out its dart clip, replacing it with a fresh one. Each clip had ten darts, and its pressure came from a C02 can that lasted at least twenty clips.

Ten darts would be more than enough to neutralize all the hostiles in the lobby, he figured as he rounded the corner, hugging the left wall to allow only half the room ingress to his position.

Somebody entered the right side of his vision. It was a Banana Corps man with an assault rifle. He turned and saw an entire squad enter the lobby through the same corridor as he. They passed him by, as unlike he, they were moving in fast and hard.

The entire lobby erupted with gunfire. More squads of banana guards coming in through other entry points.

It was over in seconds. As Finn rushed into the lobby, he saw all the hostiles had been gunned down. Shot with real bullets and killed.

Finn remained standing in the lobby, registering what was happening as the banana guards took control of the building. All the remaining hostiles were dead, the bombs were fake, and the situation resolved.

He walked in a straight beeline to the guard who looked to be in charge as he removed his hat and pulled his goggles over his forehead. Without speaking, he tapped his shoulder.

He turned to look at him.

Finn spoke before he could ask what he wanted. "There's one incapacitated in the south corridors, one in the stairwell, and two on the roof. They're still alive, you can arrest them." He moved away, not wanting to hear his reply.

As Finn walked away, he spotted something that caught his attention. There was a downward stairwell in the middle of the lobby floor going up to the rear wall. The floor looked to have slid open to uncover it. The existence of this stairwell surprised him.

It was not in the building's blueprints.

It was surrounded by banana guards, who were guarding it off. And so he headed out the front door of the building. He came out, and saw the escape car Jake had taken the terrorist ringleader into just pulling out from being directly proximate to the front door. In about a minute, the car would brake in place and lock down its doors, and those inside would be as good as captured.

He decided to follow the trap car, and make sure at least that would go smoothly. "Make sure they don't end up killing this one at least." He said to himself, his mood sour. He ran along the street after it as it sped away, turning right upon reaching the road.

Then the car veered right on the next intersection.

That was strange, Finn thought. If Jake was driving in the guise of somebody helping the ringleader, he ought to follow protocol and keep heading straight. He followed them around the corner, sprinting along the cobblestone street of New Roma.

The car stopped dead further along the road. He heard the Banana Guard cars coming up from behind him.

Then the driver's door of the car started abruptly bending, then it knocked clean off its hinges to lay flat on the road. Jake came out of the car. This surprised Finn, for certainly not the first time this day. He knew his big brother was insanely strong, but trap cars had steel reinforced locking bolts. Jake stepped out of the car, and he was carrying someone in his arms.

A young girl, with bold orange hair. She was unconscious, wearing a plain, grey tunic and trousers, with a belt that was basically a thin rope. The outfit wouldn't be out of place in a monastery or abbey.

Jake looked his way for only a passing glance before fleeing the other direction with the girl in his arms.

Finn gave chase, he was far away, and it was likely the Banana guard would catch up to Jake first in their cars. That was a scary prospect if Jake ended up attacking them.

Then another car came in from an off street, stopping just ahead of Jake. It was clean white, unmarked with 100% tinted windows. The back door flipped open, and Jake quickly got inside as the car took off.

Finn drew his pistol, the one that used real bullets. He continued to run after the unmarked car. It didn't matter if Jake was his brother, or that he might have a reason for whatever he was doing. His mission was still on.

The Guard cars passed Finn by, on the cobblestone streets of New Roma.

Finn stopped, and aimed his gun. He took seconds, agonizingly long seconds as the white car shrank in the distance.

He took the shot.

The car's back wheel flattened instantly, then it quickly ground off its metal base. The car lost control, then it corrected itself. It reached a bridge heading off of Manhattan, A man whom Finn recognized as Scorcher was atop the car, having gotten up through the sunroof. As the car passed onto the bridge, he whipped a ball of fire onto the road.

And a giant wall of fire erupted, gating off the bridge.

The Guard cars slammed on their brakes, some of them sidewinding. Even a small child would know that driving a car over that strong of fire might ignite the gas tank, and cause the car to explode into flame.

Finn certainly couldn't get past the wall of flame blocking off the bridge, which kept on burning. It must have been some kind of napalm mixture. He stared after, not seeing, but still watching his target escape.

"Finn, give me a sit-rep." The voice from his earwig was a different person; a man from the P.S.S. whom Finn knew.

He pressed down to talk. "I shot one of their tires, you might still be able to cut them off if you hurry."

"We'll try, now, did you see your brother take anything out of the Tendime building?"

"Yeah, a girl with flaming orange hair."

"I see..." There was a pause.

"Was she the terrorist ringleader?"

"No, Princess Cookie was killed in the raid."

"Then who is she?" He had to know who his brother would disobey the agency to extract.

"This might sound strange, Finn, but I'm not allowed to answer that question."

"I see," he had a lot of questions, but knew better than to press the matter. "What are my orders?"

"Return to headquarters for debriefing. The Guard will pursue the suspects. The P.S.S. is done tonight."

"Roger that." Finn let off pressing his earwig. He felt bombarded with questions, intensified by his agitation by what the Guard did in the Tendime building. It was well before the time limit given to him to disarm the bombs, and they made their move immediately after he reported the bombs were fake, meaning they must have followed him in.

It annoyed the poo out of him, the only hostiles whose lives were spared were those he tranquilized. He was authorized to kill them, but he had it in his power to complete his mission without killing them. At least it wasn't the P.S.S., the agency he worked for that was going on shooting sprees. Finn would kill a hundred would-be murderers if it were the only way to save a single innocent life from becoming their victim. But it was his nature to value human life in every way possible. He wished nobody had to die.

"Militarists, and their borrowed power," he muttered as he turned around, walking the lit nighttime streets of New Roma.


	5. Day Two

A garage door opened underneath. Its sound muffled through a layer of flooring. She heard it through a state of dozy half-sleep. The separation between walls and floors were sound dampening by design, and yet nothing seemed able to hide from her hearing.

She sat up in bed. Her eyes didn't want to open, but it was a room she knew by heart. She didn't need to see as she got on her feet.

The garage door made more sound, this time of closing.

She made her way across the room, her bare feet tracting easily on the hard floor. Her bedroom had its own bathroom, and she made her way to it with a sluggish level of speed and posture. Her thick, raven hair was greasy and flattened, and covered her skull like a skin, with a feeling of smothering suffocation that threatened to start itching.

It had to be very early in the morning, she thought to herself as she opened the sink tap. Splashing her face with water. The Door Lord came in and woke her every morning, meaning she woke up before that time. Who would come in this early? She asked herself, thinking about the garage door.

She showered, brushed, and got dressed, then came out of the bathroom. The large window on the other side of her bedroom showed that it was still night outside. It was really early, she thought to herself. But this didn't make her curious enough to check a clock. She had a very rigid list of priorities when she woke in the morning. And the next on it was to get something to eat.

She exited her bedroom, emerging to a horizontal walkway that overlooked a lower floor, on the other side from the row of doors. The spacious main chamber below had the active, yet calmly sparse sound made by people up and about in the morning, sounds made noticeable as soon as the door to her room had opened. Skylights high above were blackened by the dark, early morning sky. She moved up to the edge, seeing at least thirty people down on the ground floor. There was a bar against the wall on the right, moving her sight to the left, the floor moved up a brief case of steps that separated the bar floor from carpeted floor, which lead to a U-shaped array of corridors out of that space.

On her direct left, the walkway went into a tunnel-like enclosure, which lead out of being over the area directly beneath. That direction headed to the front area of the house.

She turned right, heading along the carpeted walkway, enclosed into the wall by a chest-high polyester railing. Directly ahead was a dead end. On the right was a spiraling staircase that went up and down from the floor she was on. She took the stairs down, in the direction of the kitchens, and the curiously active garage. Another person was coming up the steps. She headed down, and they came up, until coming in eyeshot. It was the Door Lord. Probably coming up to wake her. He made way for her to pass, smiling with a closed mouth and humming _good morning_.

As the family butler, it was the Door Lord's duty to wake people at requested times. When she was a kid, she didn't like being woken before she wanted to. Her dad wouldn't take back the order given to the Door Lord to wake her at a certain time, and so she resorted to trying to keep him out of her room. She tried everything; installing new dead bolts. Chaining the knob. Even moving furniture to barricade the door. It wasn't that she resented being woken early. She just felt challenged by the schedule she didn't choose being imposed on her.

Nothing she tried worked. The Door Lord was standing over her bed every morning, her defenses dispatched. When a conversation with her father moved to talking about that subject, all he had to say was: _"Keep trying, Marcelini. If you find a way to keep the Door Lord out of a room, any room, I'll be deeply impressed."_

As she went down the steps, she placed a hand on Door Lord's shoulder, and grinned. "Sorry, DL. Not this time."

The Door Lord shrugged his shoulders as he tipped his head left and right, humming a downward line of high pitched, cheerful notes.

He was happy. She continued down the steps, down to the main floor. The house almost always had a lot of people staying or visiting. It used to bother her. She generally didn't feel relaxed around large amounts of people, especially if she didn't know most of them. But that discomfort was put to rest when her father told her: _"One who specifically avoids people is no more free of them than a rabbit in hiding is free of its predators" _As a child,_ s_he didn't really understand what he meant, but took from it that she shouldn't be scared of the unknown, even if that unknown was a bunch of strangers in her home. This was a chain of development that made her sensitive to everybody's mindset, even that of strangers.

She still had her room if she wanted privacy. The only ones who ever came in there were the Door Lord, Penny, and other people she knew. They had the decency to knock first, so she never felt her sanctuary being violated.

As she got older, she learned that a lot of her father's business wasn't strictly legal. This, in turn implied that the well-dressed people who came and went from the Abadeer estate might be criminals. Later on, she learned that a lot of them were honest businessmen, or city officials. And any fear of any kind of violence from the rest of them was allayed by the presence of the residents. Anybody who made trouble would have to deal with Donny. And if someone made a big enough ruckus, her dad would appear, and then nobody would want to be in any way party to the disorder.

She felt perfectly comfortable in this home. She was almost old enough to move out, but had no reason to anytime soon.

She moved naturally through the broad, dome-like chamber with the wall bar, navigating the people around her with a routine ease. There were five bars in the entire mansion. Two on the ground floor, one in the recreational lounge three floors up, one in the underground garage, and the last was outside, on a wide, elevated patio.

She reached a door next to the bar. It led to the kitchen. Even in this early morning, it was active, with cooking staff all around doing prep and handling a small breakfast rush.

She walked by the prep tables, taking a couple slices of bread, a freshly fried egg formed in the shape of a puck, and a freshly cut slice of cheese, putting them together into an egg sandwich. None of the staff doing prep saw it as a hindrance. There was no way of predicting precisely how much of each thing they would need ready in the day ahead, so they always prepped way more than what they thought they needed.

She stopped next to a steaming pot of red sauce. Nobody was attending it. She took the ladle, scooped up some red sauce, and dabbled it over her sandwich. She loved all red food, especially Italian sauces, and held that there wasn't a single food on the planet that couldn't be improved by its addition.

The sandwich completed, she continued along the kitchen, swiftly and smoothly filing through the busy staff while taking bites out of it. At the other end of the kitchen was a door. She opened it with her free hand. It led outside. Fresh morning air came as a relief from the hot kitchen. The floors of the kitchen, and the outdoor flooring outside were seamlessly level to each other, in order to allow wheeled trays to pass without bumping. She closed the door behind her, and continued along. The door to the kitchen was in a claustrophobic, yet high-ceilinged cubby, caught at the bald spot between much more conspicuous features of the building. On her left was a stone ramp that led to the main patio; An expansive platform with tables, benches, and miniature gardens. Even in this early morning, she heard a light din of conversation up there.

On her right, down a brief flight of steps, was a narrower, railinged walkway that went all around the parts outside the mansion that didn't have an external addition.

She took another bite of her sandwich. Then went right, going along this narrow walkway. The first floor windows were up higher than where she was walking, and so nobody inside saw her. As she went along this railinged walkway, the ground on the left began to slope down, placing her in a position of height, in spite of moving across a level walkway. She reached a corner, and rounded right. The wall on her right was covered in white polyester. It was impossible to guess the material underneath, and she was never curious enough to shear away at a chunk of it to see.

She continued along the now elevated walkway, eventually reaching a door on the side of the structure. The door was the same color and texture as the wall around it, and nearly impossible to spot from a distance. It was completely unmarked, and there was not a single window near it.

She remained in front of it, deciding to finish her egg sandwich before going in. When she was a little kid, in spite of growing up here, she never knew about this door, or what it led to. It was only after the three-years-older Penny was taken in that it was discovered by them together. When she finished her chores and tasks for the day, Penny would always find her, and pull her along to play around the estate. As kids, they went on all sorts of adventures together. One of those adventures led to discovering this door.

She finished her sandwich, and opened it. Revealing a downward staircase, dimly lit by a loose row of low-set gas lamps mounted on the walls. She went down the steps, and the door slid shut silently behind her. When she and Penny first discovered this place, they wondered why it had gas lamps, when electric lights were a lot cheaper. They asked her dad about it, and he told them to try and figure it out on their own. She and Penny figured it out in their early teens, when they were brainstorming together while hanging out. They realized that the intent was to conceal the staircase, and room ahead, as not having anything electric made it invisible to the electrical grid. Following gas pipes was significantly harder, and more time consuming than diagnosing a fuse box.

The end of the steps came to a huge underground chamber. Illuminated by skylights that went up through the house, all the way up to the roof, their shafts concealed within the walls on every floor of the building above. Far to the right was the entry to a road tunnel that inclined upward, leading to a bigger entrance above ground. An unmarked white car was parked just ahead of her. The spare tire mounted above the rear bumper didn't have any rubber, and the metal looked damaged. The windows of this car were 100% black tinted. It was impossible to see through from the outside. She spotted Penny on the other side of the hangar. She had her back to her, sitting on a stool at a long table. Her jacket was off, hanging on an adjacent stool, leaving a white dress shirt with baggy sleeves.

She approached her, as she passed the car, she felt the grill; still warm from use. She saw Penny take a wet towel out of a bowl, and then wipe her eyes with it. Her auburn hair was raggled and unruly. As she approached her, she turned on the stool, setting the rag in the bowl. "'Lo Marcy."

She stopped. "Penny, were you..." She looked at the white, unmarked car. "Out all night?"

Penny ran a hand through her hair. "Marcy, unless you had an overnight epiphany about not getting involved in the business, you don't want to know."

She noted the damaged tire. "Was it dangerous? Like, were you in any danger?"  
It was a personal question. Penny leaned forward off the stool, hanging, drooping, out of wanting badly to go to sleep. "Some prick shot out my tire. Luckily I had me, and my mad driving skills."

"We also had," interjected another voice. A voice that was level, efficient, and almost monotonous. She looked, and saw Scorcher coming out of the dim, gas lamp-lit bathroom to the left of the table. "My napalm mixture to cover our escape."

"Righto," affirmed Penny with a lifted arm, that she promptly set back on her hip. "I had flashy , showing off his flashy flames."

"They burned hot," said Scorcher plainly as he sat at Penny's right at the table, facing away to look at Marcelini. "But they sure took the heat off our backs."  
"Speaking of heat," Marcelini replied with a crooked smile and sunk eyebrow as she indicated the unmarked car. "It can't be nearly as hot as driving around with those illegal-arse black-tinted windows."

"Well, you say that..." muttered Penny.

"I can make a mix that'll burn a hole thirty meters into the-"

"Scorcher, subject, changed." Penny snapped impatiently.

"Okay."

"Seriously," she continued saying to Penny. "You shouldn't drive that thing on the streets, it's probable cause on wheels. If any Banana Corps people see it, they'll pull you over for sure."

Penny stood up. "Thank you for your concern, Marcy, but the boss will flay me alive if I talk about my assignment with a civilian."  
Scorcher looked at her. "There's no risk of a leak, the package and delivery man are safely-"

"Come on, Scorcher," Penny said detachedly as she walked past him, dragging him along by an arm. "I gotta report this as soon as possible, so I can hit the sack."

She watched them leave. They took the stairs that she took to get in the underground garage, to get out.

She heard the door up top swing open, then swing and hit shut.

Now alone, she looked toward the unmarked car. She wanted to look inside, it correlating to something Penny couldn't discuss. In spite of not wanting to get involved in the family business, its existence made her home an interesting place. She walked up close to the back door of the car. The floor of the garage was concrete slabs with hardened solution in the cracks.

She considered opening up the car and looking inside. Should she? She asked herself.

She could learn as much as she wanted and still not break her stand to not get involved in the family business. After all, what she knew was something she could keep entirely to herself. Even if she knew everything, she wouldn't have to talk about any of it, nor even let anybody know she knew. She could explore all she wanted without being accountable.

What about the violation of privacy? Her train of thought extended to consider this. Was it really worth looking? She was having a good day anyway. "Eh, I don't need to know, I'm not greedy." She said to herself.

Who was she kidding? She rebuked herself. She was greedy, she was extremely greedy. Having a good day only made her want to make it more colorful. She came to the white, blank, boring-looking car, and opened a rear door to the interior. The upholstery was black, solid, and opaque. She saw out of the windows from inside of the car as she stuck her upper body in, propping her hands on the seat. The interior of the car was as unmarked as the exterior. Special tape was strapped around the driver's wheel and armrests that didn't leave fingerprints. The car was cold. She understood the purpose of the black tinted windows was to hide the faces of the occupants. This was not a car meant for broad daylight driving, or a pleasant tour through scenic trails.

Searching this car was a waste of time. She had revealed her presence to Penny, whom even in her tired state, would not be careless enough to leave something to find.

As she moved her person out of the car, she spotted something new.

A slight discolor, on a tiny spot of the back seat.

She moved her head closer to it. It was a hair, a single, coiled up hair. She pinched it between her index finger and thumb. Then withdrew out of the car and slammed the door shut. A close, intimate look at the hair revealed its color to be orange. A radiant orange that changed between dark and light shades in different places as she moved it; changing the angle of the lighting.

Still looking closely at the hair held close to her face, she walked to a nearby workbench up against the wall, then took a rag that was laying atop it. She placed the hair into the rag, and folded it around it. She wanted to hang on to it, maybe put it under a microscope or find somebody who could tell her what it's from. She'd never seen anything like it. It was definitely a hair, but no person, animal, nor dye she had ever seen was capable of producing such a color.

She turned back to the underground garage. It was mostly empty. The general area around the corner she was closest to had far more things; objects, than the rest of the open floor, the rest of which was nearly all empty space. The unmarked car was the only vehicle visible. The wall on the other side to her left had a row of tall powered doors, but she had never seen them open, nor had she ever found a way to open them. There were probably more vehicles inside, but she had no idea how many, or what kind.

She headed for the stairwell out. As she traversed, she considered what to do next with her day just beginning. Ever since recently graduating high school, she'd had a lot of free time on her hands. In a routine day, this was usually the part where she headed out to town, to hang with friends, or find a good place to practice her bass. She might also take the hair to a lab or something to see what it's from. She felt a strong interest in whatever Penny and Scorcher did last night that they couldn't talk about.

Her thoughts wandered. She was in a perfect vantage point to be an impartial observer to all sorts of interesting events. Her father ran nearly all underground operations in New Roma, and had interests dotted across the entire east coast. Her best friend started working for him in a significant capacity a couple of years ago, and there was also Finn and Jake; a pair of world-class super cops.

It dawned on her, vividly, that she knew a lot of interesting people. And was in a spot to watch them, with danger and involvement not being objects. Her sense of greed for the enjoyment of life began to manifest. It throbbed, as if trapped under a stuffy film, building up in pressure and itching for a release.

She reached the top of the steps, and exited the door to the outside. The sun was now visible, and the cool morning began to warm.

It was decided! She was going to follow Penny, and eavesdrop. Penny said she was going to report to Hunson about whatever went down last night, maybe she could pick something up from their conversation. Perhaps she would pick up a clue as to where the hair came from.

She could barely contain her eagerness as she went right after coming out of the camouflaged door. The green lawns on her left, and the wall of the building on her right blurred by as she subconsciously sped up. Any convention of what particular things it was proper to get eager for was washed aside. She was excited about this because she knew how to get excited about it. She didn't care if anybody understood.

Something had been found. And now, her day has begun.

The mansion stood erect in the center of the green field. She rounded a right turn at the corner, coming to the front area. The walkway went past a parking lot below on the left. A car was leaving, heading for the gate in the distance that led directly to the city. Another irregular thing she had to think in order to realize on account of growing up around it was that the Abadeer estate had as high a land value as the urban zones of New Roma. Were it not for Hunson's refusal to sell or lease the land, there would be skyscrapers on it.

She reached its front doors, which, with comforting reliability, opened for her. The Door Lord's unassuming face awaited behind. She walked by without greeting him. She had already greeted him today, and knew he would not take offence to her indifference.

Uneventful was her trek from the front door to Hunson's office.

Penny and Scorcher were waiting outside the door. She saw her approach, and indicated the door with her head. "He's meeting with somebody right now, nobody comes in."

Marcelini got excited at this. A private meeting was perfect for eavesdropping, and this was the morning after whatever happened last night. Chances were good there was correlation. She walked up to the door. When Penny stepped forward, about to object, she patted her down with a hand signal. It worked.

She brought her ear up close to the door. People inside were talking. "I wanted to be spared this indignity. Talking to a man like you." The voice was as stiffy as could be, with an overtone of dispassionate monotony.

"I know who you are, and you know who I am, but that doesn't mean we know each other." The voice was Hunson's.

"You are half correct." Replied the stuffy voice. "You do not know me personally, but I know you quite well. Your actions are evident in all the things done by your organization."

"I can say the same of the... institution you are a part of."

"That institution is the Federal Government."

"And..?" Hunson expected the other man to say something more.

"What more is there to say?"  
"You are a part of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government, to be more precise. President Bubblegum's cabinet, to be even more precise. But you never need to bother with precision, do you?"

"Is there a point, to what you're saying?"

"And now you back out of the conversation! My point, Mister Peppermint, is that your institution survives off the hearts and minds of the people, and a big part of attaining that is to always appear blameless to them."

"Are you trying to take some kind of moral high ground, Mister Abadeer? It is indeed necessary to take a few lives, persecute quite a number of people if you want to have order and prosperity. But your kind does it for personal gain; for money and power."

"All gains in this world are personal. Anybody who says differently is either a con man or a fool."

She heard Mr. Peppermint sigh. "I cannot believe we're having this conversation."

"Me either."  
"What do you hope to gain by arguing with... with me? Do you just like running your mouth?"  
"I like talking, yeah. I like people." Hunson's voice was easy and calm.

"I'm sure you also like putting bullets in their head."

"Say your president starts a war; far from unlikely. She would be just as much a killer as I."

"It's not the same. You kill people to attain wealth."

"And the government does it for... what, exactly? Oh, just remembered. You don't like getting clear about things."

Marcelini listened on. It had always amazed her that her father was able to come up with strong thoughts on things so quickly. It was one of the things she wanted to learn from him.

Mr. Peppermint replied. "Higher causes; things more important than wealth and power. We hold the good of the people in our interests; the good of the nation."

Hunson tsked. "Wealth can feed people and erect cities. Higher causes cannot."

Mr. Peppermint sighed. "I grow tired of this debate."

"So, then," his voice casually rose. "Why don't you tell me what you're here for?"

"To the point now, hmm?" Mr. Peppermint cleared his throat. "I'm here to make an inquiry. An agent ot the Peacekeeping Strategic Services recognized one of the perpetrators in the incident last night. This description matches the profile of a man who works for... well, you."

"Who, exactly, matches this description?"

"He is known only by the alias Scorcher."

Marcelini looked at Scorcher, who was leaning on the wall across from the door, staring ahead in indifference. "Scorcher," she whispered.

He perked up.

"They're talking about you."

He cocked his head.

"The other guy in there, he's asking about you."

Penny stepped forward, "shit." She looked at Scorcher. "Someone might have seen you, last night."

Scorcher looked at Penny, then at Marcelini. Then he turned around and walked away. "I'mma go make myself scarce then." He moved briskly through the hall, away from the two of them.

Penny watched him leave. "Guess I'm making my report alone then."

Marcelini lifted an eyebrow. "Are you sure you're not hot like him?"

She returned the expression. "Is that intended as some kind of pun?"

"Wha-? No, I didn't mean-"

"I am /not/ a pyromaniac like him."

Marcelini sobered, "Penny, listen."

She suddenly put up a hand, smirking, "That was a joke. A joke, Marcy. I get what you meant, and no, there's no way anybody saw me. Scorcher was outside the car for a bit, so he was seen." She looked down the hall the way Scorcher went. He was already out of sight. "I bet it was that same prick that shot out my tire who fingered him."

Marcelini moved her ear close to the door again. It muffled the sound behind, it would be impossible for a person of normal hearing to hear the words.

"..And the report given to you by this... Agent Werecanine." Went Hunson's voice. "States explicitly that the man he saw was one Scorcher?"

"Yes." Replied Mr. Peppermint.

"I... don't follow."

"Don't follow what, exactly?"

"Well, let's say this agent of yours said that, say, it was Micky Mouse he saw, by the standard I'm seeing in what you're saying, you would believe that to be completely true."  
"Finn Werecanine is a highly trained operative, and the P.S.S. did put him through proper debriefing. He is certainly capable of remembering faces."

"And here we get to the joker in the deck!" Hunson's voice became lively. Marcelini knew, for certain, that he was pointing a finger at Mr. Peppermint.

"Joker, Mister Abadeer? I'm afraid it is now I whom doesn't follow you."

"You see, Mister Peppermint, there's no way the face that this 'Finn' saw was Scorcher. Because Scorcher doesn't have a face."

"That's a distinction in itself. There are not many people whom don't have a face-"

"Don't be thick in front of me, Mister Peppermint. If you do, I'll ask your obnoxious little frilly of a master to sent a different liason to my sphere."

A pause, Peppermint remained quiet.

"You see, you tiny, sneaky little man. Nobody but me, and now you, know that Scorcher doesn't have a face. He always keeps it covered it completely with linen bands."

Mr. Peppermint had no reply.

"What did this operative really see, Mister Peppermint?"

"...A man covered with linen bands."

"And who is capable of having their face concealed in that manner?"

Peppermint paused, there was a slight hiss in his voice. "Anybody..."

"So do you come to me with a case, or merely cheap tact?"

There was a sound of abruptly standing up. "We know you're correlated! We know your people got involved in what happened last night!"

Hunson took a deep breath. He was relaxed, taking his time. Marcelini knew for certain that he was leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head, and probably had his feet propped up on his desk. "Do you have proof of this?"  
"We-"

"Proof that a court of law would give a hoot about?"

"...no."

"Then if there's nothing else, my time is quite valuable."

"What do you want, Abadeer?"

"Hm?"

"Why are you sticking thorns in our side? Can you not be content with your little sphere?"

"Mister Peppermint, I have nothing to say to someone like you, on any personal level. Donny."

She heard a couple of heavy footsteps.

"Escort this man off the premises."

Peppermint's and the big guy's footsteps came up to the door. Marcelini backed away to lean on the wall on the other side next to Penny.

The door opened, revealing a short, stocky, bald man in a tailcoat. Marcelini remembered seeing him on television. He was the man who announced President Bubblegum in her inaugural speech.

The small man made eye contact with Penny, then with her, then continued in the direction of their left not stopping. Donny accompanied him, closing the door behind them and walking only a meter behind. The much taller Donny made slow strides that contrasted Mr. Peppermint's rapid tip-tapping.

They shrank in the distance, eventually turning a corner.

Marcelini got even more pumped. The clues kept coming up. Tiny little giblets of information and detail that made the picture of what occurred last night, while she was sleeping, all the more vivid.

"Penny, you can come in now." Called Hunson's voice.

She went up to the door. Marcelini put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her.

She looked back at her, her eyes were sagged down with dark bags under them.

"That Peppermint guy is heading to the middle area, you want me to make sure he doesn't see?"

Penny paused for a second, processing what she just she smiled crookedly, narrowing one eye. "Nice try Marcy, but if you want to stay an impartial observer, I advise you start keeping your nose out of this."

Marcelini backed back against the wall, crossing her arms. "I liked you better when you were dim. You just had to get wise on me these past few years."

Penny returned her expression, it was a pleasant expression. "I love ya too Marcy." She went into Hunson's office, shutting the door behind her.

There was nothing left for this lead. She let her arms drop, bumping off the wall as she went right, heading farther west from the middle area, the opposite direction Donny took Mr. Peppermint.

The hallway passed by a stairway on the right, and rows of doors on the left. It ended with a two-step elevation leading to a broad room whose walls, floor, and ceiling were all wood finish. It was a recreational room, with billiard tables around the center, and double chaired tables up to the walls with chessboards. The room was surrounded on three sides with wide windows overlooking the estate. About five to ten people were scattered about the room. Two of them were playing billiards, producing the regular knocking sound of pool balls hitting each other.

She scanned the room. Nearly everybody at the estate, whether a resident, visitor or guest, tended to act indifferently toward her. They were polite when she talked to them. But otherwise had nothing to say. There wasn't any other kind of stranger she could be less uncomfortable around.

Her surveillance of the room stopped at one person.

Her whole day since waking had welcomed unfamiliar, non-reactionary, and static elements into her mind. These were things that normally would be cycled out, or remain static 'till she went to sleep again. But all of her actions and decisions since waking did not have conventional motivations. She hadn't done anything routine. And now, this irregular expedition to a new pattern of behavior reached a climax. What she was doing was not aimless. Anybody looking at it would call it aimless, and there was no evidence it was not.

No evidence, except what she felt right now.

She approached this person. He was slouched in a recliner by the window, his eyes shaded by a newspaper.

This was the one, the one who held all the answers. The release, the final explanation that would clarify everything. And she knew exactly how she was going to get it out of him. The only context of this moment for her was within this day. None of her memories, none of her experiences mattered right now. She could do something completely insane; walk across the room naked, without any concern. She reached the man in the recliner, approaching from behind.

She leaned over his head. Past the chair was a window; nobody would see what she was doing. She gently took the newspaper off his face. "Hey, Jake." She whispered in a high pitched, yet hushed tone.

Jake murmured, slowly opening his eyes to the light.

She pulled a switchblade, and wrapped her arms around his neck in what would resemble a neck hug from behind, positioning the knife in a place he could see it. "Ya takin' a nap?"


End file.
